Democratization and the Politics Behind Korean E-Government

摘要

Korea has become the world E-government leader, employing ICTs to improve the openness, transparency, and accountability of government operations, yielding S1 billion in annual savings. E-government legislation wouldn 't been possible without Koreas prior democratization, which altered incentives facing politicians, making it riskier and costly to abuse public office for private gain, while rewarding leaders for introducing reforms to reign in bureaucratic corruption and effectively deliver public goods to constituents. This study demonstrates the constraining effect of democracy on corruption through objective, comparative statics analysis of industrial policy corruption and through examination of perception polls and experience surveys of corruption before and after the democratic transition. Application of process tracing techniques reveals that E-government was introduced as part of a broader democratically-motivated drive within Korea to reduce corruption and improve government policy performance.